It has been 20 years since I left the cult but I do remember that I could never show anyone outside of the cult my temple garments. We were told that they were sacred and we could not show ANY part of the temple garments to anyone.

Lately I've noticed an apparent shift in mormon culture concerning the garments. I have observed a few TBS who seem to want to show them off. My TBM nephew wears his 2-piece garments with the top untucked and sticking out from underneath his shirts. It seems like he wants to show them off...?

My wife is a nurse and her hospital just hired a TBM female nurse who likes to walk around in the locker room wearing her garments openly. My wife feels like she is baiting people around her to ask her about her temple garments. Like no-one knows why she would wear such baggy grandma-like underwear.

Has there been a shift in mormon culture? Are temple garments becoming a thing to show off or to invite conversation?

It seems weird.

Maybe they hope it’ll keep other mormon topics from coming up? You know, the topics for which the only answer is, “We don’t know, but someday we will! Isn’t that wonderful?”

That's been going on for at least 20 years. Young Mormons, particularly from BYU, would intentionally expose their garments: men would wear them under an open collar; and women would pull their garment tops down and out from under their blouses to get two or three inches of exposure at their waists. In both cases the students were creating a layered look.

I was appalled. Yes, the style contravened the church's rules, and as a gesture towards "worldly" fashions it seemed a cheapening of what were supposed to be celestial standards. I thought, only in a bizarre self-contained world like the Lord's universities would people take something both sacred and ugly and transform it into a fashion statement.

I think attitudes have changed.

I still recall getting whacked behind my ears in the Provo temple. My MTC district of elders wanted to iniatories. I did not and the temple workers had a cow that I wanted to wait them out.

So being a big guy who hated being naked, really abhorred running a round robin of being naked, then touched and then putting on the garments. I guess that I didn't take the worker seriously when he stated that he was going to whack me for letting the bottom of the garment touch the ground.

He hit me and that was it. I walked out and went to the locker room.

I can't imagine the workers doing that today, but 35 years ago, they got away behaving and acting as assholes.

In Utah, you see it all the time, it's ugly. But, they want to show their peers that they are good (better) mormons that always wear their jammies. Nothing less appealing than some good looking gal in the grocery store bending down and exposing her garmies. Really hate the ones that buy shorts an inch shorter than their underwear.

I never wore my garments in front of nevermos. I would have died of embarrassment. I didn't even like wearing them in the women's locker room at BYU.

I almost died when a never-mo asked me if I was wearing a girdle because he could see my garment line through my bluejeans.

I thought the temple garments were extraordinarily weird and unattractive.

Offenders can even keep wearing them in the Utah Jails and Utah State Prison system.

Yep, a bunch of faithful Cons.

They should be showing them off those garments are sexy! Need to be flaunting that!

Once at the Costco along State Street near Draper, I encountered a pretty female Costco employee who was wearing garments, with a tank top. So naturally, you got full view of the capped sleeves, the neck, the underarm, etc. I thought it was pretty weird.

I was specifically told to remove them BEFORE getting dressed in a communal locker room to change for a performing job. (plus, I didn't want to be seen in them anyway) This was in 1990.

Also- there's a gay porn company that makes mormon missionary fetish videos and the garments are on full display! ...or so I've heard...

I belong to a gym here in Zion where I see men in garments in the locker room on a regular basis. I was in the Army nearly 50 years ago, and wore garments there. It was possible then, and I suppose still is, to buy camouflage garments since they were sometimes required by the army. There is simply no way to "hide" garments in the army other than ditching them altogether. In retrospect, that would have been the better choice. Too late smart.

Yes. the people you described are weirdos.

But, aside from that. I think overall people aren't quite as church-broke as they used to be. The fear of God, isn't affecting their day to day quite as much.

I see garment slips here and there and it used to be a big deal. Not, so much anymore. No one really cares.

people you see with garments showing. I've told this story before. My son and I were sitting on a bench at the Long Beach Airport waiting for my "husband" to bring a rental car over to pick us up. A rental mini van pulled up and a family started getting into it. The mother had too tight low waist jeans on and a top that had elastic around the waist. She bent over to put a kid in a car seat and I could see all the way to her neck and I could have seen her crack if not for the garments. It was shocking. I can't imagine what others thought.

My daughter wears layers so that people can't tell she has garments on--so they can't see the lines.

Just walk this way ... to the temple!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grBXGuMDU78

It has always been important to show off your garments at BYU. It used to be easier, because of the look that one-piece garments had under your clothing, what with the big "Helenca neck" that you had to climb through to get them on. But even now, it's important that a guy can show a girl that he has been on a mission. Do you know how difficult it is for a non-RM to get a date at BYU?

As for military, I was in the AF, but was assigned to an Army unit for a few years. I had to deploy with them, and do all the physical stuff like erect comms antennas in the field. It involved sledge hammers and stuff, and we had to take off our BDU shirts to do it. So I wore a green T-shirt over my garments. I once had an LDS AF captain tell me that I couldn't do that, but I was able to just tell him to go take a hike. Eventually, the AF came out with green garments, but they had the obvious marks sewn it. But then the church got the wise idea to print the marks on the garments, and do it on the INSIDE, where no one would be the wise. I sure don't miss any of that. I was always getting looks when I was in a locker room having to take off my clothes.